Ron Paul Discusses Contagion, Gold, Goldman And The Fed

The man who will soon be proven to have been right all along, Ron Paul, was interviewed on CNBC earlier discussing topics such as the Greek contagion, Goldman Sachs, surging gold and, of course, the Fed. Asked if this is just the beginning, the response is "Yes, this shouldn't surprise anybody, how long should we have been anticipating this? I have anticipated it since 1971, because the system that replaced Bretton Woods was an unviable system and this is proving the point, so this is the unwinding of the system and until we replace it with something you are going to continue to see this... You can't correct the problem of debt with creating more debt, expecting the Fed to endlessly create more money and credit. We are in for a lot more trouble as far as I can see." Can we grow our way out of this debt? "You'd have to cut taxes drastically and cut spending drastically. Politically you can't do that. People will resort to more spending, more deficits and more inflation of the money supply. If you see a GDP number go up, it is about equivalent to the money we have created - you don't have any more growth than the artificial stimulus of the money that we put in. We have not allowed the liquidation of debt, we have not allowed the elimination of the malinvestment still in the system."

Ron also says anger at Goldman should be focused at the Fed: "When the history of this time is written people will say - how in the world did they believe that a few people in a secret room can decide what interest rates should be, how much the money supply should be, who should fail, what worthless assets taxpayers have to buy. It is absolutely bizarre."

Lastly, Ron has a word of caution against those politicians who time after time vote to retain the Fed's secrecy: "The Fed is a big issue and those individuals in the Senate who votes against auditing the Fed, there will be a political price to pay for that just as much as those who voted for the bail out. Right now those who vote to enhance the Fed will get punished politically because the people are waking up and they realize that the Fed is the culprit."

Not surprisingly, Ron Paul is not too happy with the handling of the Vitter amendment. Yet Paul's conclusion is most insightful: "The markets are more powerful than governments, the markets are even more powerful than the Fed. We fixed the price of gold at $35 for years, but we knew the market couldn't sustain it. We knew the Bretton Woods agreement would break down. This is why we knew in 2000 that the dollar would crash in measurement toward gold."

Paul shuts up Becky Quick who makes fun of his bearishness on the market by saying he bought gold at $35, using the system against itself. "I am on a reserve gold standard, and I don't feel that badly about that, because my reserves are in pretty good shape, because I knew in 1971 that paper would lose its value. Now the gold surge recently as people are discovering that they are really printing money. You can expect a lot more price inflation."

Sorry Ron, the contagion started in the US in 2007 when US consumers were unable to request the commerial banks new credit at the rate needed. As the reserve currency of the world that contagion has spread throughout the world. The amount of new credit(which is actually negative) is unable to service the prior credit expansion.

Update: sorry hh I was not responding to you, accidently responded to your post.

WHY do they not just download and run like a YouTube video? Instead, I have to let it download for several minutes just to watch 20-30 seconds of it at a time ---- and if I let it download a bit too long, it resets to the beginning every time! What the fuck is up with this? Am I the only one who experiences this?

Where I am, the basis for Paul's ligitimacy is just now beginning to be picked up by the general public. IMO, Paul correctly identifys the start of the problems resulting eventually with the rapid inflation of the late 70's with the steps taken during the Kennedy-Johnson era.

That sounds great, but a telephone poll is not a primary or a general election. The respondents, not yet conditioned by mass-media psychological assault techniques, were speaking their own minds. That will be corrected before any real ballots are punched. First step: reduce all meaningfull issues to simple slogans that connect with people's deepest, most vulnerable emotions: hope, fear, and hate. Next step: use political war chests (now free of any constraints) to flash these slogans day and night across the retinas of the electorate via saturated television buys. (Remember: you can fool all the people most of the time, which is enough to get the job done.)

Lastlly, Mr Paul would have no chance in primaries where he would be crushed between old-guard Republicans and Palin-captured tea party doppelgangers. And no independent has come even close in any recent presidential election. I know many ZH folk believe the American people have finally had enough and are ready to take back their country. Unfortunately they are a self-selected minority and do not represent the impressionable mass of the voting public.

I take no joy in expressing these gloomy thoughts. I really hope I am wrong - but I don't think so.

If he lives 10-15 years more, he will see his opinions vindicated 100%. Actually he's already vindicated, but by then the mainstream will acknowledge that, too. However this does not mean the U.S. would smarten up. Most probably it will be the same circus with a different name.

Humans have choice. The problem is humans keep making the same choice and expecting different results.

The change can only happen when humans pick a different choice, until that time:

- system expands

- system stops expanding at the rate needed

- system peaks

- system collapses

- system liquidates

- humans have choice, most likely rinse and repeat

There will probably be a lost generation or two this time, unfortunately. I love his stance on limited government, but he were put in office the mob will come looking for him when the system completely collapses.

Our disaster is searching for a patsy. Who will it be? Each guy runs on grandiose plans and when they get into office they are shocked by the reality, and end up kicking the can down the road hoping it doesn't fall apart on their watch. I wouldn't want to run in 2012 unless the TSHTF before then.

IMO, depends on when he was born. A different approach during the Kennedy-Johnson era would have resulted in different outcomes. But, then, Kennedy would not have had the legacy that he has today.

One problem was the high expectations that the people growing up in the relative real prosperity post WWII. The concept of personal gratification NOW as a right was driving attitudes about what was acceptable.

I disagree, but let's say that you're right. I'd still rather have someone like Ron Paul - who is preparedfor the collapse, and, IMO as "something like an ancap that votes mostly Libertarian", has the correct solutions on the table.

A return to Survival of the Fittest rather than Survival of the Leanest would be welcome. Somewhere along the way being lean and being fit got confused.

You can have zero body fat but if you thought some wet-behind-the-ears lawyer from Chicago with zero executive experience would be a great entry level experiment at 1600 PA Ave THEN YOU ARE NOT FIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What he is talking about is that by criticizing Goldman and the other banks the powers that be have once again succeded in diverting our attention. The most important change needs to be at the Fed. Critizing Goldman is treating the symptoms and not the cause.

He is saying the problem systemic. It's much larger than the Squid and Wall Street.

See today's piece at The Daily Bell (my bold):

"... we will continue to fight the good fight to focus the alternative press and its viewers on the single most powerful problem facing the world today. That problem is not government itself, not even the power elite and their fear-based promotions. The problem at the root of it all is mercantilism – the ability of private enterprise to seize the levers of government power and through the passage of laws and regulations guarantee formidable profits for themselves and their associates."

You can "package" he three weeks till Thurday... and she'll fall way short of the votes needed. She has a core group of followers, but everytime she opens her mouth, she persuades another core group NOT to vote for her.

I think the above observation on Ron Paul is correct, though. Do you want collapse now? Or collapse later?

When it all comes right down to it, Americans may just avoid major pain by (again) voting for empty promises.

Wow, you couldn't have it more wrong. Palin is not the GOP establishment candidate, they hate her too. The establishment candidate was and still is Romney. A big gov't republican who looks good on TV.]

I'm on the fence about whether or not the anger should be directed at the Fed or the banks. People will feel how they feel. But, if you know how advertising works, the media can effectively control the actions of the simple masses with few exceptions.

The guys at Lehman and Bear Sterns went down with honor. That was a good way to die, so to speak.

This way, they've contributed to a far worse cultural contagion. For what? What could possibly be worth this? Certainly not a fistful of dollars. Not even a Picasso on the wall.

I think if you were the CEO of Bear and Lehman, you would like to feel you went down with honor. The facts don't bear that out, but people will feel how they feel-- especially when you operate in an environment that is equivalent to a Den of Thieves.

The government decided to crowd out private investment by commanding everyone to go debt-crazy. So the investment banks complied so they could remain profitable, keep everyone hired, keep their wives in nice clothing, and blah blah blah.

So, that's venal, I guess, but that's the way the business works.

All the while every hedge fund manager in the world was playing Madoff with a few exceptions. Not even joking on that one - most hedge funds are god-awful.

Like everyone, they're a mixture of good and bad... and it was better to go down back then than it is to live on in this Bernanke-sponsored undeath.

Yes, in the Hunter Thompson sense, I'd be more proud of these guys if they purposefully destroyed themselves and crashed asset prices as fast as possible. I'm thinking of one of his quotes now... about driving a car straight into a gas station at top speed...

Just pick up the phone, call your pals at the other trading desks, and count backwards from 10. I can dream!

You are kidding, right? In my experience a women dislikes a man who is proven right (especially through his own arguments), but loves it when a man notices when she is right. Granted, you may have to be very patient (just a joke-don't kill me Marla).

Was a sad thing to be part of as the Republican Liberty Caucus was forcibly exiled from the GW Bush Big Tent due to a host of issues, some of which Paul alluded to in this interview.

What Paul has mentioned elsewhere regarding the military -industrial complex control over DC expenditures being one of the sticking points, as well as Republicans using the Medicare Rx bill to buy the electorate....

4.5 years ago I was younger and believed there was still a way to escape the Greenspan bubble in RE and get out of Afghanistan, now I don't believe there is any way to escape the collapse of currencies during the years I had hoped to raise a family. I no longer see how this works out over the next 10 years without massive social upheavals.

And to my dismay, neither Ron nor Rand are particularly useful to the body politic in the coming years... Ron Paul explicitly states it in this interview, he's got purportedly large gold holdings at very low avg cost. He's rich, he's old, he is a stalwart doctor in his community he soon retires in. He has no reason to stay in politics.

As someone who has met him personally and was on the ballot with him as a delegate, I have never met anyone whose life and beliefs were more aligned and trustworthy. It gives me no pleasure to have been right and to say, "We told you so." But we did. Now the Republican pundits, like Hannity, who showed their disrespect and venom during the last campaign, risk losing their relevance to their one great hope of their party--the very tea party members. They will try to steer us toward a candidate who will keep spending our children's future in wars we should not be in and the continued meddling in other countries' affairs in the name of "spreading democracy." Wake up neo-cons, unless you want to split the vote and enjoy a second term for Obama. They will blame Paul for this if it happens--but it is they, the Levins, the Limbaughs, etc. that will cause this by their skewed vision. America has some more waking up to do if it is ever to be the country patriots believed it to be.

Dr. Paul is a complex personality. If one has not been following him for years he seems disconnected and unfocused. The fact is that he has gone so far beyond the level of understanding of the average guy (as concerns the market/metal/government relationship) that he seems flustered. He's not. The amount of information that it takes to relate the current situation is so vast that one has to have a background like his to comprehend. The man is not a goof -- he is just unable to bring everyone up to speed in one interview. Sorta like that ugly girl in high school, once you get to know her you get beyond the first impression and appreciate her for who she is. As for his being elected and bringing down the system, he has said before that he would not do that even if he could. The Executive branch has power, but not enough to do that. There is always a group who wants to hang the President, now it's the proletariat, with Dr. Paul it would be the elite. Which ox do you own?

It is a perfectly apt description. I feel the same way when I try to explain what's happening currently to the uninitiated. The problem is, you can't, not unless you have at least 10 uninterrupted hours to allow for the full story to be told.

We live amidst two narratives. One, Reality, is lived by a relatively few people. The other, Surreality, is the narrative that most people live by, having been conditioned over years and decades by our government, the media, and corporations. Trying to explain Reality to someone living in Surreality is like an amphibian trying to explain to a mammal how to breath underwater. Without gills then you just don't understand how it's possible.

When I was first thrown into the ocean of Reality I felt like I was drowning, but once my gills took root then I found it easier to breath, until eventually it became natural. Water is like Truth in the ocean of Reality; I love the feel of it as it flows around my being.

SLV can run until people start trying to redeem shares and get cashed out instead. That won't be fraud however, because SLV holders are traders and speculators - not investors. The question is, how many don't realize it.

If SLV is a fraud, i.e., uncorrelated to physical silver then you would think SLV would plunge and silver would remain uncorrelated and continue its currency-like move. But correlations can break anytime for any reason.

The last 3 months of his primary campaign had him talking to full houses at small venues, and he was bringing in audiences from a wide swath of society. He was taking questions from every maroon who got to the mic, be it BillyBob the gun nut or teleprompter audio repeaters like this Quick person.

Also, just as much the times have caught up to his specialized acumen.

Bingo. It's much easier to digest complex subjects when it hits you. I don't think RP is out in left field anymore as the issues he's been hammering at are now at the kitchen table. The only thing that would prevent openness to his message would be another bubble in something, anything, but I don't see that happening.

Not enough gold in 401k's nor personal safes to benefit the serfs. I do agree on gold though, nice looking bubble, I saw it in 1980, also participated in a silver refinery around that time, pretty hard crash...

Ron is right. After Nixon and Vietnam we simply took the road that all global superpowers throughout history took that eventually lead to perdition: issuing IOUs. Endless IOUs predicated on faith in the status and power of the US. We became like the rich-kid mooch you knew in college: he got rubes to lend him money that he never intended to repay. The rubes were very willing to fork over because they assumed he was rich.

We cheated. We made the easy choice because it felt good, rather than making the wise choice. By the eighties, many leaders projected the attitude: "Apres moi le deluge". Like in Rome, depraved wealth took flight. Worship of all things venal tok hold. The parallels are too glaring to ignore.

Now we're left with a crumbling pyramid. You won't trust that your neighbor will pay you back. Banks don't either. And without full federal support, banks wouldn't trust banks. Even top corporations are too indebted and their operations depend on perpetuating debt. They don't want to invest cash reserves into a contracting economy. There's a suspicion that any credit extended could blow up. Those with wealth will hold on to it defensively.

As Ron Paul states, when we look back on the choices made many will look laughably silly. Fed secrecy is one. Of course we all know why a mooch needs secrecy.

The problem with Ron Paul is that most of the dumb phuques out their don't know what he has been screaming about and they are getting dummer by the minute. They'd rather have Palin in there identifying the other side as the enemy of state on every single issue. Another "problem" with him is that he calls it dead right on foreign policy - why are we here, why are we there, why are we spending so much phuquing money, etc.....

The war machine does not like that.. not one bit.

Though as I have stated in previous posts that I support Paul, I would bet on a Palin win, and short the shit out of the market as the horsemen cometh...

Meanwhile, Obama fumbles... everyone outside of Washington hates it, and he simply does not get it.

Markets will continue lower between the destruction of the Gulf, closed Euro airspace and until banks shakedown the ECB for QE. Incredible how many claim the independence of monetary policy and politics but financial extortionists move legislation and policy like no other entity because of sackless politicians.

Like Andrew Jackson said to the angry people who were screaming, "What will you do about this?", when Biddle retaliated by freezing lending when Pres AJ threatened his charter.

Andrew Jackson: Don't come to me.Go to Biddle he is the man who controls the money.

The part of all this I have a hard time grasping is, Obama, Bernanke, Geithner and Congress all have children, who one day will have children, and these guys are knowing destroying these kids' futures. All of them know the truth, we are doomed, we cannot pay our way out of this and neither will these kids. How can these guys go home at night and look their children in the eye? Is 15 minutes of fame so important that they would sacrifice there own blood for it?

You have a great question there. The answer follows simple human nature. First comes denial. Then inevitability. Nobody wants to believe that their children will have a hard time of it. But they rationalize that there's little they can do as an individual. They feel swept up in the current of history and human affairs, powerless to change it. Then finally they abdicate their better judgement and suspend their disbelief (Cognitive Dissonance knows all about this). The world has always been full of problems, true. But the choices are up to us as individuals and as a society on how to deal with those problems. We have to live with the consequences of past choice, not just the inevitability of challenges.

It seems absurd from the vantage point of today, but when the powers that be (in the Reagan days) ordered people to "Shop till you drop!" most people said "How much and how low?"

Remember reading about a poll asking people what they would do if they knew the end of the world was a year away. The largest response was "have children". How sick! Bearing a child, knowing it will be dead in a few months to fulfill their own selfish want.

To be successful in politics one must be accomplished in deception - of others, but primarily of yourself. Only those who pass this test stay in the game. Others will drop out or be forced out, and hopefully find some other way to work toward a better future.

Eloquent? Look, I will crawl on my hands and knees to the depths of hell to follow this man's lead, but eloquent is not a word I would expect to find in the grab bag of adjectives available to describe him. Intelligent, honest, trustworthy, composed, etc. but not eloquent. If he was eloquent we'd have re-elected him for his 4th term by now.

Yeah he lacks "charmisma" and I second your support of confidence however his sense and rationale are all the charisma I need. I cannot remember on here who said it a few months ago and perhaps it was you but the quote was:

"President? I trust this man so much I welcome him as my dictator".

See that is the thing about truth. If you continue to spout it eventually it stands the test of time and is heard because there is only one truth even if it takes you 30 years in Mr. Paul's case.

They are hedging their bets for when he becomes elected in 2012. We have two years remaining and the people are very upset and he is the only rational, sane and honest voice in politics currently. Americans should be priveleged to have someone of his intellect as their President. The women will lineup to cast their vote for him because he was a practicing OB-GYN so he understands women quite well. As this adminstration continues to play, "Nothing to see here", and unemployment kicks up they will be forced to destroy Wall Street as we know it out of fear of winning votes. We are only seeing the beginning of the political financial uproar.

Dr. Paul, an obstetrician, is a devout Christian and believes that abortion is killing. That being said, he also believes the states are the ones that should decide individually if they will allow abortion. His stance on this is mainly that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to make a decision about the morality of abortion and the proper course would be for the states to decide or for there to be an amendment to the Constitution through proper process.

That is a very clear and accurate statement of Dr Paul's position, but unfortunately not suitable for a bumper sticker. 3/4 of potential voters would blank out halfway through, look at each other, and say "I don't get this guy - is he fur it or agin it?" Such is the sad reality of modern politics.

As someone who was actively pimping Ron Paul back during the primaries and wading neck deep through the nutjob, black helicopter, etc. ad hominems from his critics, it's amazing to trod in the same places and find nothing but crickets chirping. Ron Paul was right and people are waking up to that fact. Too little too late, but maybe there will be sufficient political capital to set things right when the Matrix is reset.

Hey Perma Bear. I read the link to anil serlarka and was interested until he said the U.S. took down Toyota because they were the No1. auto company in the world?? If I remember correctly Toyota had a known defective part in their vehicles which they tried to hide from the public to save money and got caught. After this misguided comment it looked like his writings were the typical U.S bashing for all the world's ills from someone who did not get a green card.

And so did American Airlines who were pardoned with a 10 million dollar penalty compared to the gigantic amount on Toyota (strange considering the variance of risk in air to road travel). I think his point is more to do with the intensity of action by the government towards certain institutions as compared to the rest.

Why does CNBC even have Ron Paul on their show? Is this some form of self-flagellation for on-air douchebags? Is this like a form of penance that they think will absolve them of their transgressions when a mob of angry, penniless investors and savers are at the studio doors with 2x4's and iron pipes in hand?

I hate these people. I hate them so much. I want to see all of them stripped to their underwear and thrown into a deep mud pit and told that only one of them would be allowed to leave, then forced to fight each other to the death. Now that would be good for CNBC's flagging ratings.

"Mr. ZINA, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul."

that interview and this thread (outside zina's smugthugslug) is woven with pure gold. thank you gentlemen.

there will be a time when the good doctor will have to hand off the baton. i personally prefer to allow him the courtesy to use his judgement of when & who that will be. he's got a pretty darn good track record so far and it seems like he's just beginning to hit a good stride on the boobtube.